The invention is part of the equipment designed for amusement parks and particularly refers to amusement devices such as roller-coasters or the like, where a train of passenger units or cars is lifted to a certain height, where it completes its run under the influence of gravity.
For many years, in these plants the cars were lifted slowly along an inclined track while pulling them by a chain or the like and released in a downward section after reaching the top of the hill, so as to obtain an adequate speed to overcome the subsequent hills and drops and complete the full run.
The search for innovative solutions and the ever growing demand for new excitement on the part of the public have in recent years motivated the engineers of the field to develop new systems in which the cars are lifted along an almost vertical track and started on a very steep drop, or rides in which the cars are powerfully accelerated even in their ascent.
In a few cases, linear magnetic induction motors are used for this purpose, which however demand enormous power of the order of some megawatt, and consequently enormous costs both for the installations and their subsequent operation.
In other cases, some piston-type devices are used to lift the cars, which are also huge ones and consequently have high construction and operating costs.
This invention now enters the branch, by offering a launching system for cars on a hill and in particular along vertical track, which provides for the use, in order to adequately accelerate the cars, of a counterweighted device capable of performing the launch and later, while the cars complete their runs, is moved back to its starting position at low speed, thus requiring some little and low-powered equipments.
The object of this invention is to provide a launching system for cars running on a track as part of equipment used in amusement parks, such as roller coasters. The launching system includes a mechanical launching device where a falling counterweight moves a rope to pull a train of cars with a necessary force, wherein the counterweight is slowly lifted back up at the end of the launch, while the cars complete the track, thus only requiring some low-powered equipment. The system according to the invention is far cheaper to be produced than the known systems, and offers far lower operating costs.
The system is preferably provided with a second counterweight, having a half the mass of the main counterweight, engaged to the latter at the time of its lifting, so as to further reduce the power and therefore the size of the driving motors.
This second counterweight is then lifted again during the dropping of the main counterweight lifting the cars.
This ensures that the motor is constantly in motion, but operating at a reduced power.